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Josephine Reynolds (born 28 March 1965) is a British writer and former firefighter. She has been described as one of the first full-time female firefighters in the UK. [1] [2] [3]
Reynolds grew up in Narberth, Pembrokeshire. [4] When she was 12, her family home, where she lived with her mother, brother, and step-father, burned down. [5] In 1981, at age 16, she left school and moved to Norfolk to live with her father. [4]
In 1982 she was accepted on a new training scheme with the Norfolk Fire and Rescue Service aimed at school leavers. [4] After a year of training, she began working with the fire and rescue service in Norfolk in 1983, aged 18. She worked at the fire station in Thetford. [5] Three years later she qualified to drive a fire engine.[ citation needed ]
She married a fellow firefighter in December 1986. [5] The following year, they both left to travel. [1] [4] Reynolds moved back to Norfolk in 1990, after the breakdown of her marriage. [5] She later moved to China. [5]
Reynolds published an autobiography, Fire Woman: The Extraordinary Story of Britain's First Female Firefighter, in 2017. [1] As of 2017, Reynolds was retired and living in Cambodia. [5]
Rescue Me is an American comedy drama television series that aired on FX from July 21, 2004, to September 7, 2011. The series focuses on the professional and personal lives of a group of New York City firefighters.
Fleur Lombard was the first female firefighter to die on duty in peacetime Britain.
Clare Hollingworth was an English journalist and author. She was the first war correspondent to report the outbreak of World War II, described as "the scoop of the century". As a rookie reporter for The Daily Telegraph in 1939, while travelling from Poland to Germany, she spotted and reported German forces massed on the Polish border; The Daily Telegraph headline read: "1,000 tanks massed on Polish border"; three days later she was the first to report the German invasion of Poland.
Avon Fire & Rescue Service (AF&RS) is the fire and rescue service covering the unitary authorities of Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset, and South Gloucestershire in South West England.
The West Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service (WYFRS) is the county-wide, statutory emergency fire and rescue service for the metropolitan county of West Yorkshire, England. It is administered by a joint authority of 22 people who are appointed annually from the five metropolitan boroughs of West Yorkshire, known as the Fire & Rescue Authority.
The Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service (HIWFRS) is the statutory fire and rescue service for the county of Hampshire, including the cities of Southampton and Portsmouth, and the county of the Isle of Wight off the south coast of England. The service was formed on 1 April 2021 from the merger of Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service and the Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service. The service's chief fire officer is Neil Odin.
Humberside Fire and Rescue Service (HFRS) is the statutory fire and rescue service covering the area of what was the county of Humberside (1974–1996), but now consists of the unitary authorities of East Riding of Yorkshire, Kingston upon Hull, North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire in northern England.
Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service, is the Local Authority Fire Service serving the English unitary authorities of Buckinghamshire and the City of Milton Keynes.
Firefighting has historically been a predominantly male profession throughout the world. However, since the 1970s, women have made inroads in both professional and volunteer fire departments in multiple countries. In modern times, women have served in a variety of fire service roles including as fire chiefs. Nonetheless, they comprise less than 20% of firefighters even in the countries where they are best represented.
Norfolk Fire and Rescue Service (NFRS) is the statutory fire and rescue service for the county of Norfolk in the east of England. The county consists of around 870,100 people, covering the 4th largest area in England with 2,074 square miles including 200 miles of inland waterways, 90 miles of coastline and 6,125 miles of roads. The county city is Norwich with other major towns including Great Yarmouth, King's Lynn and Thetford. Norfolk has one of the 20 Urban Search and Rescue teams across England and Wales which were set up in response to the 9/11 attacks. The teams, including Norfolk, have the capacity to deal with two simultaneous incidents across the UK.
Danielle Amara "Dany" Cotton, is a British retired firefighter. From 2017–2019, she served as the commissioner of the London Fire Brigade and was the first woman to hold this position. She had previously been the director of safety and assurance at the London Fire Brigade.
Meenakshi Vijaykumar is an Indian academic, firefighter, and the first Indian woman fire officer. Currently, she serves as the Joint Director at the State Training Center in Tambaram, Chennai. In 2013, she was awarded The President's Medal for Gallantry for saving two lives, and in 2019, she received The President's Medal for Meritorious Service. Vijaykumar is also the first Indian Fire Officer to have won medals in the World Firefighter's Games and World Police and Fire Games held in South Korea, Australia, USA, and the Indian Fire Service Games held in Nagpur.
On 21 November 2013, Metropolitan Police from South London's Human Trafficking Unit arrested two suspects at a residential address in Lambeth. A 73-year-old ethnic Indian Singaporean man, Aravindan Balakrishnan, and a 67-year-old Tanzanian woman, his wife, Chanda Pattni, had been investigated for slavery and domestic servitude. The case centred around the Workers' Institute of Marxism–Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought commune which was led by Balakrishnan. In the early 1980s after a police raid, Balakrishnan decided to move the group's activities underground. Balakrishnan's control over his followers intensified and the commune became a prison to his followers. On 25 October 2013, three women were rescued from the commune—these were a 69-year-old Malaysian woman, a 57-year-old Northern Irish woman and a 30-year-old London woman. Morgan-Davies was born into the sect and had not experienced the outside world until her release.
The Tamil Nadu Fire and Rescue Services department is a service department of the Government of Tamil Nadu whose function is to fight fires and provide relief measures in times of calamities and disasters in Tamil Nadu.
Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service is a statutory emergency fire and rescue service covering the local authority areas of Wiltshire, Swindon, Dorset and Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole in England.
Sister Mary-Joy Langdon BEM is a British nun who was the first woman to be an operational firefighter in Britain on 21 August 1976. She started a pony riding centre to supply therapy and she was an Olympic flag carrier in 2012.
Sabrina Rachel Cohen-Hatton KFSM is a British firefighter, psychologist and writer. She is the Chief Fire Officer of the West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service. In 2019 she was selected as one of Marie Claire's Future Shapers and featured on Desert Island Discs.
Shaunagh Jordan Brown is a former English rugby union player and former hammer thrower. In rugby union she represented England and Harlequins Women until her retirement in December 2022. She made her debut for the England national team in 2017 against Canada. Brown represented England in the hammer throw event at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, and has also worked as a gas engineer, firefighter, and commercial diver.
Alex Johnson QFSM is a British firefighter, named the "Most Influential Woman in Fire" at the Excellence in Fire and Emergency Awards in December 2019. In January 2020, she started serving as the chief fire officer of South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Authority (SYFRA). When Johnson started out as a firefighter in Derbyshire in 1992, aged 24, only 1% of firefighters in the UK were women. She said: "I never saw another female firefighter from one month to the next, there were so few of us."
Shazia Parveen (born-1990s) from Vehari, Punjab, is the first female firefighter in Pakistan. She joined Rescue 1122 emergency services in 2010. She has received nationwide recognition and has been featured in international news as well.